Photographing Places Blessed by Nature and Contested by Man

Sebastian Villegas trekked over 120 miles by boat, mule and foot through mountain grasslands and muddy jungles to photograph the lives of people who had been cut off from the rest of Colombia for years.

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Fishing is an important part of life in Vásquez, Antioquia.CreditCreditSebastian Villegas

Decades of armed conflict between the Colombian government and rebel groups rendered vast swaths of the country’s northwest off-limits to interlopers, who risked being kidnapped, or worse. Those perils have largely vanished after peace accords with the main rebel group, the FARC, removed man-made dangers. But this remote area — thick with vegetation and resources — still has many natural obstacles.

Undaunted, Sebastian Villegas trekked over 120 miles by boat, mule and foot through mountain grasslands and muddy jungles to photograph the lives of people who had been cut off from the rest of the country for years. He found a region where the official state has long kept its distance, and where people eked out a living not just through agriculture, but also through less-sustainable, extractive means, like artisanal gold mining or logging for fine woods.

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The valley of the Espeletia in Urrao. Although these paramo make up only 3 percent of Colombia's territory, their ecosystems provide water to over 70 percent of the country’s population.CreditSebastian Villegas

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Juan Bailarín, an ex-combatant with the FARC, is now a guide who covers all the locations deep in the jungle where tourists could not previously venture.CreditSebastian Villegas

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Chapulines grasshoppers.CreditSebastian Villegas

The result of his arduous journey is “El Resto es Selva,” or “The Rest is Jungle,” a book and exhibit that looks at these places blessed by nature and contested by man. “There has to be some reciprocity,” said Mr. Villegas, who was selected for the project through a competition financed by the World Bank administered initiative Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and conducted by Colombia’s Ministry of Environment and the NGOs Fondo Accion and Puente Consultorias. “We take from them, but we don’t replace. That’s where I started on the project, looking at how we use up natural resources, but never go to these territories. When you buy a camera or cellphone, you don’t know where the materials come from. We have the object, but not the knowledge of how we extract the materials.”

Mr. Villegas set out on his trek with a guide who had been a guerrilla and spoke various indigenous languages. It could take more than half a day to just cover 19 miles. He traversed the sensitive ecosystems know as the Páramo, remarkably biodiverse mountain grasslands. They ended up in the jungle, where they found people resorting to gold mining using methods that employ mercury. In some places they encountered loggers standing in deep sawdust from their labors. It was, in a way, a revelation.

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People looking for gold on La Cristalina mountain, in Chocó.CreditSebastian Villegas

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Ofelia in her house with her family. The houses in the community on La Cristalina do not have electricity.CreditSebastian Villegas

“These communities, which are isolated, have been through years of conflict,” he said. “There are a lot of minerals, oil, bananas. These were all areas affected by the war. But you could feel it change with the peace process. They were opening up, and civilians could enter to tell their stories.”

While there is no more armed conflict, danger remains. Recently, four police officers were kidnapped in the region, and daily life remains a struggle. Children have their education cut short in order to go to work and help their families. The discovery of gold in one location 13 years ago led to a local rush of sorts, and Mr. Villegas’s photos show the deleterious impact of contaminated water and a landscape of felled trees.

With the project completed, some 3,000 books have been given to libraries, NGOs and members of the diplomatic community, Mr. Villegas said. There have also been exhibits and workshops in Bogotá. But his goal is to take the photos back to the source, printing them on cloth that can be hung from the trees in remote villages.

“We want to bring it to the people who are in the book,” he said. “They gave me access to their lives and stories. The photographer has a great responsibility. You can’t just take. You have to be responsible. It’s a question of ethics.”